


The Revenants

by SeveralSmallHedgehogs



Series: The Last of Us/Critical Role Universe [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), The Last of Us
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, Guns, Major Character Injury, Natural Disasters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24822904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeveralSmallHedgehogs/pseuds/SeveralSmallHedgehogs
Summary: It's been months since Molly and Yasha left Pittsburgh behind, and they've given up searching for their group. Finding the Fireflies doesn't seem like a likely option, not by themselves, but it's the only one they've got. Meanwhile, Caduceus has been searching for a haven ever since losing his place with the Fireflies. To make matters worse, while they're busy dodging Infected monsters and trigger-happy humans, their pasts start catching up to them.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Mollymauk Tealeaf, Caduceus Clay & Yasha, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha
Series: The Last of Us/Critical Role Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1364977
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	1. Late Spring, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Third time's a charm? I read the synopsis of TLOU2 this morning. This is not going to be a rewrite of TLOU2. This is an original story set in the same universe as No One Else.

He woke to darkness. Not just the darkness of the inside of his eyelids, but a horrible, pressing blackness all around him. He managed to take a breath, but it was shallow and it tasted like dirt. He was underground. Buried.

He couldn’t lift his arms. But he managed to twist, writhing until he could work his arms up through the dirt and he felt something cold and wet drip onto his face. Mud? Was there water? Was it raining above him? He couldn’t hear anything, but either way, rain meant up, and up meant _air,_ so he started digging. He couldn’t tell how much progress he was making, though, and it was difficult and tiring. He wasn’t very strong. He began to lose confidence that he was digging in the right direction. What if he was going downwards? Or—or sideways? What if he suffocated before he could get out? His skull was burning and his breathing came faster and the panic was still building, and he was about to start screaming for help when his hand broke out of the earth.

The shock broke him out of his terror, and he clawed upwards with renewed energy. The dim light grew brighter and brighter until, suddenly, there was sky. He lurched towards it and his head broke through the ground, and he gasped. The smell of rain and rotting plants immediately filled his lungs, but it was a welcome relief from the wet soil. Immediately he took to coughing, hacking, expelling the earth from his chest, but he at least had the presence of mind to drag himself the rest of the way out of the ground. Then, for good measure, he crawled a few feet away before he collapsed onto his side.

He coughed a couple more times, and although there was no more dirt coming up, every breath he took felt gritty. His tongue tasted like mud. But although his breathing gradually slowed, and the adrenaline faded, his still couldn’t make himself move. The air wasn’t all that cold, but he shivered, and then shivered again, like fever chills. The rain felt good. Cool. And he was so tired.

Brush broke somewhere behind him. Something was approaching, though he wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t gather the energy to turn his head and look, and so he just laid there, heart pounding, as the noises grew closer and then a hand came down on his shoulder.

“Molly, wake up.”

There was no hand on his shoulder. He pried his eyes open and found that it was dark. Panic seized him for a moment before he noticed a flicker out of the corner of his eye. Groggily he turned his head.

There was a woman sitting a few paces away, on the other side of a small campfire. She was tall and broad-shouldered and quietly beautiful, with muscles that made many people think twice about bothering her. Her hair was black but whitened at the ends, and the charcoal around her eyes made her irises—one blue, one violet—even more vivid. One arm was down at her side, her fingers wrapped around the hilt of one of his swords. Her shoulders were tense. It took his sleep-addled mind a moment to come up with her name. “…Yasha,” he said. His tongue felt thick.

She studied him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He took a shallow breath. “I… think so. What happened?” His were hot and his whole body ached.

She didn’t relax. “You’ve been asleep all night and most of the morning,” she told him. “You… uh, you had a fever.”

“Did I?” He pushed himself over onto his back—he didn’t think he could sit up quite yet—and put a hand to his forehead.

She was quiet for a moment. “Do you know where we are?”

He thought hard. “…Texas,” he said aloud. “Near Dallas.”

Yasha nodded. “Do you remember what happened?”

Again, he tried to remember. “We ducked into a grocery store,” he recalled. “To get out of the sun. There were… Infected. We tried to get out through a back door and there were spores. I fell and lost my mask, and… we got out, and then… I passed out?”

She nodded, and relaxed. “Are you all right?”

He nodded slowly and mentally ran though the rest of his memories—meeting the rest of the group, relearning how to talk and read a little, traveling, losing track of everyone in Pittsburgh… his name. His name was Mollymauk Tealeaf. He had his name, and his memories. It seemed like everything was still there. Okay.

“Okay,” he said aloud. “I… seem to be all right.” He pushed himself up on his elbows and, with great effort, managed to get upright. It was dark. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. The sun went down a while ago.”

He looked around. “What do you think?” he asked. “Keep moving? Or stay here for the night?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “I can’t see well here. There’s not a lot of protection if something comes after us.” She didn’t add that Molly was in no shape to fight.

“Okay.” Molly put a hand against the wall—they’d found shade against a building off the highway—and lurched to his feet. He only wobbled a little, and Yasha, thankfully, did not move to try and catch him. That would’ve been a blow to his ego. “So, we keep moving until we find a better spot to set up camp. Sounds good to me.”

She had to help him get his backpack on. But once he was all set, they started walking again. They stuck close to the buildings, so Yasha could look around corners and make sure the coast was clear. Molly kept an eye out behind them. It was quiet, though. There wasn’t a lot of water around here, so it made a certain sense that people would have moved off a while ago. Less people, less Infected.

But there were _so_ many buildings, and none of them were good places to set up. Walking around between them was nerve-wracking. They weren’t close enough together for Molly and Yasha to climb around on the roofs—these cities were built out rather than up, and they gave a new meaning to the word _sprawling._

“Really wishing we had a car,” Molly remarked. Back when they were with the group, there had been a pickup truck. Gustav and Desmond had sat in the front, and everyone else piled into the truck bed. Molly had liked the feeling of the wind on his face while they drove. But they’d lost the pickup when they got ambushed in Pittsburgh.

“Maybe we’ll find one that works.” Yasha eyed a pickup as they walked past it. There were a lot of pickups around here. What was it with Texans and trucks? And why couldn’t they find any that still _worked?_

“Molly,” Yasha murmured. “I hear something.”

He turned and looked at her. She’d stopped walking and she had her head tilted up and back while she listened. He looked around, trying to pick up on whatever she’d heard, but there was just the wind between the buildings and the ambient noise from the crickets.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said, keeping his voice down anyway.

Yasha didn’t respond right away. She tensely scanned the buildings. “I really think I heard something.”

“Infected?”

“No. It only sounded like one thing.”

Molly stood still, debating. They’d been in this area for a few days and they’d never seen any lights. There wasn’t a settlement or a camp anywhere nearby, as far as they could tell. Was it an animal, maybe?

“Hello?” he called experimentally. Beside him, Yasha stepped over to put her back to his. “Anybody here? We’re not looking for a fight.”

"Maybe it was an animal,” Yasha murmured, though she didn’t sound convinced.

“Might have been an infected,” Molly replied. "Just one of them."

“Wouldn’t it have come at us by now? The infected don’t hide. And they're normally in groups.”

Molly hummed. The sun was setting; they had to move on if they wanted to find a decent place to stop. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he called. “We might be able to help each other.”

No response. There were a few places in plain view where he figured a person could hide. Not to mention the roofs. “Last chance,” he said, and waited. Still no more sound. No movement. He sighed. “All right, have it your way, then.” He turned to Yasha. “Which way, you think?”

She turned left. They walked in silence for a while. “What if they were hurt?” she asked finally.

“We could go back and check,” Molly said, recalling how he’d woken up the night the others found him. “But I’m worried that it was an ambush, or someone about to turn, or something.”

“…You’re right.” Her voice was almost too quiet to hear. Molly stepped up and put a hand on her back, but there wasn’t much to say. He hated that the world they lived in forced them to choose between kindness and survival. It was a horrible way to live.

Caduceus was not doing so well. He was alive, sure, and he only ever ate plants so this wasn’t much of a change. He knew what was edible. But the Infected. He didn’t have much to deal with them. He wasn’t strong enough to fight them off, so more often than not, he’d had to resort to running. He was so tired of running. He didn’t even have a map and he had no idea if he was running in the right direction. A lot of people he’d met were not friendly to strangers, so he hadn’t been able to ask for directions.

The weather had been getting hotter and stormier as it moved into summer. He’d taken to hunkering down to sleep during the hottest parts of the day. It saved energy, and it probably saved water, too, if he wasn’t trying to run around in a hundred degree sunlight.

On this day, he’d slept later than he normally did. He must have needed it. But what woke him, instead of a bird or his own internal clock, was the sound of voices nearby. He sat up, listening intently. He’d found a spot inside one of the burned-out buildings, probably something that used to sell decorations and things for houses. Part of the linens section was still there, and not too rotten. He’d piled everything soft onto the floor and curled up on it as best he could. It had been the best sleep he’d had in a very long time.

But the sleep fled from his mind as he heard someone call, “Hello?”

He held his breath. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he knew that a few months ago, he would have stepped out and said hello back. But that was then. He’d been shot at a few too many times by now.

“Anybody here?” the voice called again. “We’re not looking for a fight.”

“Maybe it was an animal,” offered a different, quieter voice.

“Might have been an Infected. Just one of them.”

“Wouldn’t it have come at us by now? The Infected don’t hide. And they’re normally in groups.”

There was a pause. Caduceus listened closer, but he couldn’t tell whether they’d lowered their voices or just stopped talking altogether. _Ask them for help,_ urged some part of him. _They don’t sound too bad._

He took a shaky breath. No. No, he couldn’t go out there.

“Last chance,” the louder voice called.

Caduceus shut his eyes. No. No, no, no. As long as he was alone, he was safe from people who would lie to his face, steal his work, try to kill him.

“All right,” said the voice. “Have it your way, then. Which way, do you think?”

The footsteps retreated down the road. Caduceus remained where he was, holding very still, for another couple of minutes. Just to be sure they were gone. Then he carefully got to his feet, gave the nest of blankets one last, mournful look, and cautiously stepped out into the open. There was nobody else on the street. He would have to get out of this town before he ran into those people again.

They’d gone East, so he went the opposite direction. The street was too wide for just one man, weaving between the rusted cars. He’d ridden in a car a few times, back when he was with the Fireflies. But he didn’t know how to drive one, so walking was his only option.

Not that walking was all that bad, when it was cool enough. Even if there were no people, there were birds. Foxes. And plants. He kept finding new, unfamiliar flowers. And a few that he recognized from pictures and descriptions in the books he’d read as a child. He’d found a rosebush and wished it had rose hips on it. You could make tea out of rose hips.

He walked and walked and walked. But he couldn’t seem to get out of the city. He tried picking a shape on the horizon, as an anchor point, but all the shapes on the horizon were buildings and they all looked the same. He didn’t want to go towards either of the actual cities he could see; he’d already made the mistake of wandering too close to one of them. Those people were decidedly not friendly.

It was getting dark. Should he stop, or keep going? He’d gotten a pretty good nap in, so he wasn’t too tired. But travelling at night… oof. This was a dilemma. He kept walking and thinking. And after a minute, he started to hear noise. People? No. Not people. Infected. As close as one street over, it sounded like.

He needed to get off the street. There was a shop right next to him that had two stories; he ducked inside and climbed to the second floor—a hallway lined with doors. He wasn’t safe here, the Infected could climb stairs. There had to be some way to get onto the roof. His heart rate had picked up without him noticing. His mouth was dry. He scanned the doors and spotted one that said, _Staff Only._ Maybe it was for maintenance?

But it was locked. Or rusted in such a way that it wouldn’t open. He bit his lip, glanced at the stairs, and slammed his shoulder against it. He could hear the Infected from inside, now. They sounded like they were gathering in the street.

He checked the offices. Desks, chairs, stiff rubber bands, scissors… scissors. He took them, broke them in half, and stuck them into the gap between the door and the doorframe. They scraped against something, and rust filtered down to the floor. He sawed at whatever was in there, hoping against hope that the lock was just old and rusted. Please, let the lock be old and rusted.

But after a minute, the rust stopped coming off and it sounded like the scissors were just scraping against metal. Caduceus removed the scissors and glanced again at the stairwell. Still no shadows, nothing moving.

“Please let this work,” he muttered.

Then he slammed his shoulder against the door again.

And the door gave, just a little. He gave a huff of laughter and hit it again. Downstairs, the Infected sounded louder. Were they inside?

He tried a third time, a fourth time. There was definitely movement in the stairwell now. He gathered his strength, knowing his shoulder was going to be bruised in the morning, and hit it one more time. Something snapped the door swung open. Caduceus burst through and ran up the stairs, out onto a balcony. There was a ladder to his left. He grabbed it, shook it to make sure it would hold, and then climbed up. There. Infected couldn’t climb ladders. He was safe.

Down in the street, two other people were decidedly less so.

Caduceus couldn’t hear their voices, but these two had to be the ones he’d heard earlier. One of them—a taller one with long hair—was fending off Infected while the other—shorter, slimmer, with a brightly-colored coat—was trying to pry a door open.

Immediately, Caduceus could tell there was no way they were going to make it. There were so many Infected. All runners, yes, but there were so many.

He put a hand to one of the pouches on his belt. Back with the Fireflies, he’d figured out a medicine that he could throw onto the Infected to disorient them for a couple of minutes. Long enough to get away, probably. It had saved his life a few times, but he was running out. And he hadn’t been able to find the stuff to make any more of it. For a crowd this size, he would have to throw everything he had left.

Down in the street, the dark-haired one said something to the other. He said something back. Caduceus wasn’t sure what they’d said. But the slim one stood, faced the Infected, and drew two swords. Their expressions were resigned. Caduceus watched as he stepped up beside the taller one and affectionately bumped her shoulder. She offered a sad smile.

Caduceus shut his eyes, sighed, and then opened the pouch on his belt. He grabbed the last handful of the medicine. And he shouted down into the street, “Hey!”

Most of the Infected looked up. He threw the dust out. It was dry here, and there was a little bit of a breeze. Perfect conditions. The medicine floated down. And the second it touched the Infected, they started shrieking. Stumbling around. Clawing at their faces and slamming into each other.

The two people looked stunned.

“Over here!” Caduceus shouted to them. “You can get on the roof from inside! It won’t hurt you!”

The people didn’t seem inclined to argue. They pushed through the crowd, cutting down a few of the Infected as they did, and disappeared into the building below Caduceus. He moved back from the edge and went back to the ladder, hoping he wouldn’t regret this.


	2. Late Spring, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if I'll be able to keep up the weekly schedule, but I'll try

Caduceus peered over the edge, waiting and listening. A second later he could hear two sets of footsteps barreling up the stairs from inside. The footsteps grew louder and louder until the two people abruptly barged out onto the balcony. The one in the coat hit the railing and nearly topped over headfirst, but the one with the dark hair grabbed the back of his coat and hauled him back.

“Up here!” Caduceus told them.

The one with the coat scrambled up the railing and spun around on his knees to watch anxiously as the other one climbed up after him and got to her feet, breathing heavily.

For a second they stared at each other. Then the one in the coat flopped over backwards and groaned. “ _Fuck._ ”

The taller one turned to Caduceus. “Thank you."

“Yeah.” The one with the coat spoke without sitting up or opening his eyes. “You saved our asses.”

“I couldn’t just let you die,” Caduceus replied, taking a wary step backwards. He glanced down into the street. A few of the Infected were gone—they must have wandered off or chased these two into the building—and most of them seemed to have recovered. A few of them were still stumbling around screeching. He’d already known that it affected some longer than others, but he hadn’t been able to figure out why.

The one in the coat appeared next to him at the edge. “Whoa,” he said. “What _was_ that stuff?”

“It was… something I made,” Caduceus said slowly.

“That’s really cool.” The person looked at him. “Can we pay you back somehow? I’m Mollymauk, by the way. You can call me Molly.” He held out a hand. Caduceus hesitated, and then shook it.

“I’m Yasha,” the dark-haired woman added. “What’s your name?”

“Caduceus.”

Molly asked, “What was that you threw on them?”

“A sort of, uh… well, it burns at the fungus. Anti-fungus?” That didn’t sound right. One of the problems with being the middle child in the family was that he knew _some_ of the proper terms for what he was doing, but not all of them. He hadn’t been his parents’ first choice of helper.

“You should be selling that stuff.” Molly pointed to the pouch. “Or, like, trading it for things.”

“Well, that was all I had left.” Caduceus looked back down at the Infected. Neither Molly nor Yasha responded. He looked back over at them and easily read their expressions. They were guilty. “It was my decision,” he assured them, offering a smile. “It wouldn’t have lasted me much longer, anyway.”

“I still feel bad.” Molly got to his feet. “How can we pay you back? Are you trying to get somewhere? We can help you out.”

“I’m trying to get to Wyoming,” Caduceus told them. “To the dam in Jackson County.”

“Wyoming? Where’s that?”

Caduceus hesitated. These two seemed all right. Maybe they _could_ help him. “Well, I don’t actually know. North and East was all I had.”

Yasha spoked up. “North and east from where? Did you come from the south?”

He shook his head. “I was in Salt Lake City. Utah.”

Yasha swung her bag off her back and unzipped it. Caduceus caught a glimpse of metal, medical supplies, and something made of glass inside the bag before she finally fished out a folded piece of paper. When she started to unfold it, he realized it was much bigger than he’d thought.

“We’re here,” Yasha said, spreading the map out on the ground and pointing. “Just at the edge of Texas. Wyoming is…” She paused, studying the map. “Here.” She pointed to the other side of the paper.

Molly leaned over, studying the map. “And you started from Salt Lake City? Where’s that?”

It took Yasha a moment to find it. “Here.” She pointed to a different edge of the map. “It looks as if you’ve been going South.”

“…Oh.” Judging by the distance on the map, if he’d been headed the right direction, Caduceus would have reached Jackson County by now. Darn

“Okay, so we get Caduceus from here to there.” Molly pointed to Texas and then the place labeled _Montana._ Caduceus gave him an odd look that he didn’t seem to notice. “No big deal.”

Yasha was silent for a moment. “That’s a long way,” she said slowly. “Pittsburgh is here, Molly, and it took us so long to get here from there.” She looked worried. And guilty. Still guilty. Caduceus could see the distance they’d already traveled, and he couldn’t imagine how many times they must have almost died getting here.

“Where were you two going?” he asked.

They looked at each other. Molly spoke first. “We were looking for our friends,” he said. “More like family, really. We lost track of them in Pittsburgh and we’ve been looking for them for…”

“Close to a year,” Yasha finished quietly. She was looking down at the map still. “But we’ve never found any traces of them.”

“Oh.” Caduceus thought of his own family and hoped they were alive and safe somewhere. Had any of them come looking for him? Had they gone back to Salt Lake City and heard that he’d been partially responsible for stopping the work on the vaccine?

Yasha looked up at him. “Why are you going to Jackson County?”

“A couple of friends of mine are there.” He paused. “Or, well, I don’t know if we’re really friends. But they were heading there, last I heard from them. I was hoping I’d run into them on the way, but I… I haven’t been so lucky yet. And most of the people I’ve met were going their own ways, so it’s been slow going.” He folded his arms, uncomfortable. Truth be told, many of the people he’d seen hadn’t seemed too friendly. The few who spotted him tended to try and kill him. He’d spent an entire night hiding in a hollow under a tree from one such group of people.

Molly and Yasha exchanged a doubtful look. Caduceus had seen it before; people usually told him that his friends had probably bit it before they got to Wyoming. And maybe they had. But… “They’d already made it all the way across the country,” he said. “And even if they’re not there, it’s supposed to be safe.”

That got their attention. “Is it a Firefly town?” Molly asked.

“I really doubt it,” Caduceus told him. “My friends… weren’t very friendly with the Fireflies.” He exhaled. “And neither am I anymore, I guess.”

“Did something happen?”

Caduceus paused, trying to decide how to respond. But then he heard something from down below. He turned his head, listening. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Molly got to his feet.

“I’m… not sure.” Caduceus scanned the sky. “I think it was thunder.”

“You think there’s a storm coming?”

Yasha got to her feet and folded the map. “We should find some shelter, then.”

“How?” Molly gestured to the street below them. It was no longer swarming with Infected, but there were still a number of figures lurching around in the open. There was no telling how fast the rest would return if the three of them went back down. “We’re stuck up here.”

She looked around the roof. “Maybe we can get across somehow. There’s got to be something…”

“Maybe that?” Molly pointed to some boxy metal tubing that wrapped up over the side of the building and stopped in a steel box a few feet from the edge. The tubing itself was only two feet across; hardly enough for a walkway.

“Maybe.” Yasha went to the tubing, wrapped her arms around it, and pulled. The metal groaned, but it didn’t come up. “Can you help me?” she asked.

Molly trotted over and stuck his hands underneath. “Caduceus?” he asked.

“I don’t know if I’ll be much help…” Caduceus joined them anyway.

“All right,” said Molly. “Three, two, one… _pull!_ ”

Caduceus pulled. And to his utter surprise, the metal ripped out of the bolts that had been holding it to the roof. Bizarrely, Molly laughed. “All right, let’s move down and tear up the rest of it!”

It took them a good fifteen or twenty minutes to get it detached. It seemed awfully flimsy; Caduceus wasn’t sure it would hold Yasha’s weight, let alone his. “Are we sure this is going to work?” he asked.

“If you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it.” Molly and Yasha had positioned the metal tubing across a gap and were making sure it wouldn’t slide.

Caduceus looked towards the horizon. Blue-gray storm clouds had been creeping towards them for a little while now. Judging by how fast they were moving, the storm would reach them in less than an hour. As he watched, a flash of lightning spiked from the clouds to the ground. A few seconds later, he felt, rather than heard, the thunder. It was nearly too quiet to notice.

“All right.” Mollymauk sprang to his feet. “Let’s try this.”

“Be careful, Molly.” Yasha got to her feet.

“Oh, when am I ever not careful?” Molly stepped up onto the metal and shifted his weight. Then he took a cautious step forward. The metal creaked, but it didn’t bend under him. He took another step. It still held.

Caduceus stood where he was, half afraid to move, watching as Mollymauk took step after slow and careful step across the metal. It creaked, and groaned, and Yasha was holding her breath. But they watched, and in what felt like a year but was probably less than a minute, Molly was across.

“All right,” said Molly. “Who next?”

Yasha turned to Caduceus. “You should go.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” Caduceus stepped up onto the metal. It bowed under his weight, and he stepped back down again. “I don’t know, Yasha, are you sure you want me to go next?”

“I can hold it steady over here,” she told him, crouching down to brace the end.

He looked down at the ground, two stories below. Then he looked up at Mollymauk across the gap. Slowly, he stepped back up. The metal creaked, and he winced.

“Come on, big guy,” Molly told him. “One step at a time.”

Caduceus took another step. The metal made another unhappy sound. “I really don’t know if this is a good idea,” he told them.

“Keep going,” Yasha said. “It’ll be all right.”

She sounded so much like his aunt. Caduceus pushed away the association and took another step. He was out over the gap now and looking down didn't feel optional. The ground was very far away. He shifted, putting his weight on his front foot. and then he heard a creak and thought, _that doesn’t sound right,_ and then, with a horrible crunch, the metal tubing buckled beneath him.

His stomach dropped and the short fall threw him off-balance and he swallowed a yell. “Caduceus!” Molly yelped.

A hand caught Caduceus’s wrist and yanked him to a stop. His heart was beating in his throat. His feet were dangling not too far off the ground, in the alley between the two buildings. He looked up. Yasha was on her stomach at the edge of the roof, clutching his arm with both hands.

“Guys?” Molly called. “I think we’re getting some attention!” 

Already they could hear the Infected approaching. Yasha gritted her teeth and pulled, but Caduceus already knew she couldn’t drag him back up. She was strong, but she couldn’t be that strong. Her grip was already slipping. “Let me go,” he told her, trying to sound calm, except his voice trembled. “I can run, I’ll be all right.” A screech from an Infected echoed down the alley from the street. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. Each second he spent dangling here was another second he wasn’t running away. He looked back up at Yasha, pleading.

Yasha looked up at Mollymauk and they seemed to come to a mutual agreement. She looked back down at Caduceus. “I’m going to let go of you,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” His voice cracked.

She released her hold on him. Caduceus dropped to the ground and winced as pain spiked through his ankle. But he could get to his feet again, and there didn’t seem to be any permanent damage. He took a shaky breath, trying to ready himself to run out of this alone.

Then there was a _thump_ behind him. He turned around to find Yasha straightening from where she’d landed feet-first onto the concrete with him. A second later, Molly dropped behind her and popped back upright again.

Caduceus stared.

“We owe you,” Mollymauk explained, baring his teeth in something that might have been a grin. “And we’re sure as hell not leaving you behind.”


	3. Late Spring, Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's late but it's here

A screech rattled down the alley again, joined seconds later by another, and another. Molly drew his two swords, and Yasha pulled a sledgehammer off her back.

“Do you have a weapon?” Molly asked Caduceus.

“No?” His hands felt cold. Was that normal?

“All right. Stay between me and Yasha. We’re getting out of here.”

“Are you sure you _know_ the way out of here?”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

Caduceus didn’t have it in him to try and convince them to escape. On one hand, he’d wanted them to survive. On the other hand, he himself wanted to survive. He knew he wouldn’t survive this without their help. He knew that, by helping, they were so much more likely to die. It was like there was a strange sort of crack in his chest, between wanting to live and wanting them to live. It hurt. He was grateful, but it hurt.

“Molly,” Yasha said, oblivious to the small war taking place in Caduceus’s head. “I think we can go back this way down the alley.”

“All right. Yasha, lead the way.”

There was a wooden picket fence at the end of the alley, just high enough that Caduceus couldn’t see over it. Molly took a running start and leaped, vaulting over the top to land on the other side. “It’s clear!” he called.

Yasha boosted Caduceus over. He hit the ground a little less gracefully than Molly had, but he wasn’t injured. Yasha climbed over after him. She really was strong.

A clicking sound down the street outside made them all instinctively press up against the wall. Molly poked his head out, and then gestured for Yasha and Caduceus to move back towards the fence. “Clickers,” he whispered. “Three of them.”

“How far away?”

“A block or so.” He glanced over his shoulder. “They were heading towards the commotion. But some of the runners are starting to wander this way. We’ll have to avoid all of them.”

“We could run down the street the other way?” Caduceus suggested.

“That’s probably our best bet.” Molly poked his head into the street and looked back and forth. “No time like the present,” he muttered. “Come on.”

The three of them ducked out of their hiding spot and made it to one of the broken-down cars without being spotted. They were almost out of sight—they were _so close—_ when high, rattling cry made the hair on the back of Caduceus’s neck stand up.

Despite himself, he looked back.

One of the runners was sprinting straight at them. Caduceus jolted, knowing he needed to run but too afraid to move. And in that instant, Mollymauk leaped in front of him and cut the runner down.

“Time to go!” he shouted over his shoulder. That one runner had signaled the other Infected, and now the cries were rising from all around. Yasha grabbed Caduceus’s arm and hauled him with her, half-upright and stumbling. It took him a second to get his feet under him and keep pace.

A sound drew Caduceus’s attention and he shoved Yasha just as another runner lurched out of an alley. It tackled Caduceus and his back hit the asphalt, and his breath exploded from his lungs. His head ached. But he’d gotten one hand on the Infected’s throat and his other forearm across the back of his hand and he was holding its teeth back from his face, just barely. Its fingernails scraped against his jacket—he knew that more layers had been a good idea, even as it got warmer—and the smell of it was so intense he could barely breathe. It smelled like rot, but not the good kind of rot, the decaying leaves and wood from a forest floor. It was like the stench of sour meat. Ever since the first time Caduceus had smelled that as a child—the first time he’d helped bury someone who’d been killed by the Infected—he’d avoided meat. Eating it made him think of that burial and the smell that had clung to his clothes afterwards.

Only seconds had passed, but Caduceus was starting to lose strength and hope and then Yasha appeared and swung her hammer. The Infected disappeared, flung off to the side, and Caduceus could breathe again, though the stink of the Infected lingered in his lungs. Yasha held out a hand. He automatically grabbed it and let her pull him to his feet. “Thank you,” he managed.

“Guys?” Mollymauk called. When had he gotten ahead of them? “We’ve got a problem!”

“Go,” Yasha told Caduceus, already turning away. “I’ll bring up the back.”

Caduceus found Mollymauk in front of a wall of nailed-together corrugated metal. It looked patchwork. Piecemeal. All uneven edges and overlapping pieces like a collage. Molly was slamming his shoulder against different spots, trying to break through. “I can’t find a way around,” he told Caduceus breathlessly. “I don’t suppose—” He rammed into the wall again with a grunt. The wall held. “I don’t suppose you’re strong enough to get through this?”

“Maybe Yasha can?” Caduceus glanced backwards. Yasha was very much busy holding the Infected back, so they were on their own. He took a couple of trotting steps back, scanning the area for some way to get over. A dumpster, a ladder, something, _something…_

“Caduceus!” Molly had moved down the wall and was gripping the edge of a piece of metal. He’d managed to pull it about an inch off the rest, and his fingers were turning white at the knuckles. “I think we can tear this off and get through! Help me!”  
Caduceus hesitated. The edge of the metal looked sharp, half rusted away, as likely to break under their fingers as it was to give both of them tetanus. As Molly adjusted his grip, Caduceus saw that the edge had already broken the skin of his hands.

“Come _on!_ ” Molly snapped.

Caduceus trotted over, unknotting his belt was he went. He wrapped it around his hand and positioned himself behind Molly, so he could reach over his head and grip the edge with his wrapped hand. He gripped that hand with his other hand. “All right,” he said. “One, two, three, _pull!_ ”

They yanked backwards on the panel. It groaned and bent backwards.

Molly grabbed the new, folded-over edge. His hands left red streaks on the metal. “Again!” he said. “One, two, three, _pull!_ ”

They managed to pull the second set of nails free and bend the second half of the metal back. Somewhere to the side, Yasha roared and Caduceus heard a fleshy _splat._ He decided not to look.

“One more time! _One more time, come on!_ ” Molly’s hands looked bad. Caduceus’s palms throbbed just looking at them. But Molly didn’t seem to notice. He’d gripped the edge. “Caduceus! You in there?”

“Right.” Caduceus grabbed the edge above him and put all his strength, all his weight, into one final pull. The metal ripped free. The hole it left was big enough for each of them to fit through.

“Yasha!” Molly shouted. “Over here!”

“I’ll be right there!” She started trotting backwards towards them.

Caduceus turned to Molly. “You first?”

“My pleasure!” Molly dropped down and slipped through, no problem. “Come on!”

“You go,” Yasha shouted.

Caduceus got to his hands and knees and started to crawl through. The edges snagged at his clothes, and he kept his head lower than he probably needed to. But then he was on the other side. “Clear,” he called.

An instant later, Yasha appeared in the opening and practically launched herself through.

“Over here!” Molly called from an alley. “There’s a fence! We can get over!”

Yasha was already scrambling to her feet and Caduceus followed her, risking a glance backwards despite himself. Two of the Infected had tried to get through the opening at once, and they were snarling, scrabbling at the corrugated metal, oblivious to the fact that they were smearing their own blood over the jagged edges. Caduceus’s stomach rolled. He did not look back again.

Yasha had boosted Molly up beside a chain-link fence lined at the top with barbed wire. On the other side was a patch of woods, Caduceus wasn’t sure how bit. Hopefully big enough to get lost in. Molly had cut the barbed wire and was quickly but carefully making a hole big enough for them to get over. “Got it!” he said as Caduceus arrived.

“Good!” Yasha launched him upwards. Molly yelped—he must not have been expecting it—but managed to hit the ground and roll onto his side.

“You next,” Yasha told Caduceus, stooping and making her hands into a stirrup.

“Oh,” said Caduceus doubtfully. “Are you sure you can—?”

“Yes.” Her eyes were grim.

“Uh… all right…” He put his foot on her hands.

“Push off on three,” she told him as he gingerly gripped the top of the fence. “One, two, _three!_ ”

Caduceus was a little late in reacting, but Yasha must have been so full of adrenaline she could have thrown him over by herself. As it was, he just barely cleared the fence and landed flat on his back on the other side. He was still gasping for breath when Yasha’s boots hit the ground beside him.

“We’re not clear yet,” Molly said, appearing upside-down in his field of vision. “We need to put some distance between us and this place.”

“Yeah,” Caduceus wheezed. It took him a couple of tried, but he dragged himself to his feet and staggered off with them, into the trees.

**Author's Note:**

> [Follow me on tumblr](https://severalsmallhedgehogs.tumblr.com/) for updates and links to new works!


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